This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
We, we will dance like tiny boats with cotton sails upon the tops of the seas,
That would pull us down to the depths and crush us flat if given half a chance.
No need to look back to pictures of lost, when all was rust.
We, we will skim across the surface of the mud as if we're spinning pebbles
Oh, in our yacht dance
Oh, in our yacht dance
We, we will dance like tiny boats with cotton sails upon the tops of the seas,
Made of people stained with scorn who never see the light of real love.
No need to look back through diaries of lost now turned to dust.
We, we will skate across the surface of the storm as if we're wheeling sea-birds.
Oh, in our yacht dance
Oh, in our yacht dance
And how they'll be jealous of both of us!
In our yacht dance.
We, we will dance like tiny boats with cotton sails upon the tops of the seas,
That would pull us down to the depths and crush us flat if given half a chance.
No need to look back to pictures of lost, when all was rust.
We, we will skim across the surface of the mud as if we're spinning pebbles
Oh, in our yacht dance
Oh, in our yacht dance
That would pull us down to the depths and crush us flat if given half a chance.
No need to look back to pictures of lost, when all was rust.
We, we will skim across the surface of the mud as if we're spinning pebbles
Oh, in our yacht dance
Oh, in our yacht dance
We, we will dance like tiny boats with cotton sails upon the tops of the seas,
Made of people stained with scorn who never see the light of real love.
No need to look back through diaries of lost now turned to dust.
We, we will skate across the surface of the storm as if we're wheeling sea-birds.
Oh, in our yacht dance
Oh, in our yacht dance
And how they'll be jealous of both of us!
In our yacht dance.
We, we will dance like tiny boats with cotton sails upon the tops of the seas,
That would pull us down to the depths and crush us flat if given half a chance.
No need to look back to pictures of lost, when all was rust.
We, we will skim across the surface of the mud as if we're spinning pebbles
Oh, in our yacht dance
Oh, in our yacht dance
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You and me, we will always rise above the hatred and pettiness in the world. Love and optimism will buoy us up despite the crushing depths of sorrow that do exist.
It's an expression of conquering sorrows with joy. XTC tend not to mince words. 'nuff said! -phase